An Unquiet Mind

Kun­gri and Ki Gom­pas: My first visit to a Tibetan Monastery

Lahaul and Spiti are known for their monas­ter­ies, locally called ‘Gom­pas’, which are great repos­i­to­ries of Bud­dhist faith and art trea­sures. Some of the inter­est­ing fea­tures of the flag-bedecked gom­pas are the huge barrel-like prayer drums, which revolve at slight touch. The ‘lamas’ rotate them dur­ing med­i­ta­tion. There are also ornate paint­ings of gods and demons.

I had never been to a monastery before, and hence was very curi­ous and eager to see one. We had break­fast, and were soon on our way towards the Kun­gri Gompa in the Pin Val­ley. There was a bridge where we crossed the Spiti River and went from Spiti to Pin Val­ley. This ride was the first ride in which we saw a sub­stan­tial part of the Spiti Val­ley. The rocky moun­tain land­scape eas­ily helped one visu­al­ize how seis­mo­log­i­cal activ­ity had cre­ated the Himalayas. The colos­sal size of the moun­tains on both sides of the Spiti River made all the moun­tains I had seen ear­lier in my life seem like dwarfs.

The bridge con­nect­ing the Spiti and Pin valleys…

We crossed the Spiti River and entered the Pin Val­ley. The Pin val­ley is the abode of the snow leop­ard and the Siber­ian Ibex. One can spot hordes of Ibex in the higher reaches of the val­ley, but we were not plan­ning to go that far.

The images above show the meet­ing points of the Spiti and Pin valley mountains

Kun­gri gompa was built in the year 1330 AD. The entrance to the gompa was very short, so one had to kneel in order to go inside. The only light inside was a lamp in front of the Buddha’s main fig­ure. Other areas of the gompa were thus in almost total dark­ness. In the dim light, we roamed around and could dis­cern fresco paint­ings on the walls.

These images show the entrance, interiors, manuscripts, idols, and fres­coes of the Kun­gri Gompa. Iron­i­cally, we couldn’t see these clearly when we were inside. We saw these in detail only after we devel­oped these images!

We returned to Kaza, had lunch, and went the other way to the Ki monastery. This is the biggest monastery in Spiti val­ley, and is sit­u­ated between Kaza and Kib­ber, on a hill­top. Fur­ther on that route is Kib­ber, the high­est inhab­ited vil­lage in the world, where in spite of vagaries of nature and drops of tem­per­a­ture below –35 C, peo­ple are still sur­viv­ing. As soon as we began approach­ing it, the hill­top was an immensely breath­tak­ing sight. At an alti­tude of 13,500 ft, a huge hill topped with houses on all sides, right up to the top! We could not imag­ine how they had con­structed these houses on the hillside.

The Ki monastery was founded in between 1008 AD and 1064 AD. The monastery is famous for its Thankas (paint­ings on cloth with won­der­ful com­po­si­tions of geo­met­ri­cal arrange­ments) and musi­cal instru­ments. There are two trum­pets, which are three meters in length! This gompa was bet­ter lighted hence we could see the artis­tic trea­sures much bet­ter. They had per­mit­ted pho­tog­ra­phy inside, and I could catch good pic­tures of fas­ci­nat­ing artis­tic treasures.

We returned to Kaza for din­ner and had Lugri (Chhang in local lan­guage), the local alco­holic drink. It is made with but­ter­milk and almost tastes the same, hence was very appeal­ing to a but­ter­milk fan like me. It was a relief to spend a nor­mal day for a change — a relaxed, planned day, with no unex­pected sur­prises, unwanted adven­tures, or disasters!

Next: Day 7

Related posts:

1. Spiti Trav­el­ogue: Day 7
2. Spiti Trav­el­ogue: Introduction
3. Spiti Trav­el­ogue: Day 14
4. Spiti Trav­el­ogue: Day 5